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PhotoFiltre Like Image Editor ‘Photoflare’ 1.6.7 Released with Paint Tool Offsets

Last updated: March 8, 2021

Photoflare, simple but powerful image editor inspired by PhotoFiltre, released version 1.6.7 with translation updates and paint tool improvements.

Photoflare is an open-source cross-platform image editor written in C++ with Qt5 framework. It has a PhotoFiltre style user interface, and features basic image editing capabilities, paint brushes, image filters, colour adjustments and more advanced features such as Batch image processing.

The new 1.6.7 was released with new translations: Indonesian and Spanish. And it removed incorrect image extension check, instead it now shows the actual file type in the Image Properties dialog.

And the new version added offsets to the Paint Bucket tool and the Color picker tool. Previously, they select from the center of the cursor location.

Color Picker Before 1.6.7

Color Picker after

How to Install Photoflare in Ubuntu:

The official Ubuntu PPA has made the latest packages for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, and Linux Mint 19.x / 20.

1.) To add the PPA, open terminal from system application launcher and run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:photoflare/photoflare-stable

2.) After adding PPA, update system package cache and install the image editor via commands:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install photoflare

Uninstall Photoflare:

To remove Photoflare image editor, either use your system package manager or run command in terminal:

sudo apt remove photoflare

And remove the PPA either via Software & Updates under Other Software tab, or by running command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:photoflare/photoflare-stable
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Avidemux 2.7.8 Released! How to Install it in Ubuntu 20.04

Last updated: March 7, 2021

The free open-source Avidemux video editor 2.7.8 was released with many new features. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu via PPA.

The new release features many new video filters. A dedicated MOV muxer is available to replace MOV muxing mode within the MP4 muxer; A subset of color info relevant for HDR support is retained in copy mode when both input and output video are stored in Matroska / WebM containers.

The indexer in the MPEG-TS demuxer now detects resolution changes in MPEG-2 and H.264 streams.

YUV varieties of the lossless Ut Video codec are supported via bundled FFmpeg library. Multi-threaded video decoding is now available for the bundled FFmpeg.

Other changes include:

  • Uncompressed 24-bit audio support.
  • Limited support for 7.1 channel layout.
  • Decode and stream copy support for XLL substream in DTS audio tracks.
  • Audio properties updated on resuming playback.
  • An option to keep the identity of markers A and B instead of swapping them automatically
  • Maximum resolution support increased to 8192×8192
  • FFmpeg bundle updated to 4.2.4
  • MP4 muxer accepts now MPEG-1 and MPEG-2
  • Extended Python interface, and more.

How to Install Avidemux 2.7.8 in Ubuntu:

The editor offers official non-install .appimage package, which is available to download at the link below

Download Avidemux

Grab the appimage, go to file Properties -> Permissions and make it executable, finally right-click and run the file to launch the Avidemux video editor.

For those prefer the classic apt method, I’ve uploaded the .deb packages into the unofficial PPA, available for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 20.10.

1.) Open terminal and run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/avidemux

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) and hit Enter to continue.

2.) Then refresh system package cache and install the editor:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install avidemux2.7-qt5 avidemux2.7-plugins-qt5 avidemux2.7-jobs-qt5

Uninstall:

To uninstall the PPA, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/avidemux

To uninstall the video editing software, run:

sudo apt remove --autoremove avidemux2.7-qt5 avidemux2.7-plugins-qt5 avidemux2.7-jobs-qt5
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Sweet Home 3D 6.5 Released, How to Install in Ubuntu 20.04

Last updated: March 4, 2021

Free interior design software SweetHome3D 6.5 was released a few day ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, Linux Mint 19.x, and 20.x.

According to the release note, SweetHome3D 6.5 features:

  • Azul OpenJDK 11.0.10 bundle for 64-bit Windows to get better HiDPI support.
  • Azul OpenJDK 15.0.2 bundle for Mac OS X ≥ 10.9, which supports notarization and the Apple new M1 processor.
  • JOGL library updated to 2.4 RC 20210111
  • Display Java runtime and Java 3D version in About dialog.
  • New options in Furniture and Textures Library Editors
  • Add a new example to the gallery, shows a house with pillars built on a small hill along a lake.

How to Install Sweet Home 3D 6.5 in Ubuntu:

First the software offers Linux portable as well as jar package in sourceforge page.

Sweet Home 3D is also available to install and keep updated via Flathub repository.

1. Setup Flatpak framework in Ubuntu:

First open terminal from system application launcher. When it opens, run command to install flatpak:

sudo apt install flatpak

Then add the flathub repository by running command:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

2. Install Sweet Home 3D flatpak package:

To install the package, run command in terminal:

flatpak install flathub com.sweethome3d.Sweethome3d

To update the flatpak package, run command:

flatpak update com.sweethome3d.Sweethome3d

Once installed, you can launch the software from ‘Show Applications’ menu and enjoy!

Uninstall:

To uninstall Sweet Home 3D flatpak package, run command in terminal:

flatpak uninstall com.sweethome3d.Sweethome3d
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Flameshot 0.9 Released with Global Shortcut Menu, Improved Wayland Support

Last updated: February 28, 2021

Flameshot, the popular screenshot software, released version 0.9.0 with great new features!

Flameshot 0.9.0 adds new global shortcut menu in configuration dialog. All actions hotkeys are fully customizable.

Another great new feature is new “Latest Uploads” option in indicator menu. It opens upload history dialog which lists all images uploaded to imgur with buttons to quickly copy image URL and open in browser.

Other changes in the 0.9.0 release include:

  • Official Mac OS support.
  • Improved Gnome Wayland support.
  • Offer digitally signed windows releases.
  • Ability to run flameshot on Sway
  • Option to use JPG format for clipboard.
  • Take “symmetric” selections by holding the Shift key
  • Add “check for updates” option
  • The rectangle tool now round the corners based on the current thickness
  • New “fixed save path” option.

Download / Install Flameshot in Ubuntu:

The deb packages for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, as well as other system packages are available to download at the link below:

Flameshot releases

Grab the deb for your Ubuntu edition, or download the non-install Appimage package.

For the deb, double-click to install via Software Install, or run command in terminal to install it:

sudo apt install ./Downloads/flameshot-0.9.0-*.deb

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NVIDIA Linux Driver 460.56 Released with GeForce RTX 3060 Support

Last updated: February 25, 2021

Nvidia Linux driver

NVIDIA announced a new release for the 460 Linux driver series today.

The new NVIDIA 460.56 driver added GeForce RTX 3060 support. The RTX 3060 features 5,888 CUDA cores, 1,777MHz GPU boost clock, 12 GB of GDDR6 video memory, and 170W TGP.

Besides the new GPU support, the 460.56 driver also fixed

  • a bug with indexed ray payloads in Vulkan,
  • a bug where calls to vkCreateDevice could fail on Ampere GPUs when ray tracing extensions were enabled and the application was running within the Steam Linux Runtime,
  • fixed a regression that could cause display corruption when using a scaled resolution after resuming from power management suspend.

How to Install NVIDIA 460.56 in Ubuntu:

Ubuntu now builds the latest NVIDIA drivers and pushes them via its own security & updates repositories. It however take time to publish the new packages.

You can just wait or use this well trusted Ubuntu PPA. Finally launch Additional Drivers utility to install & apply the new NVIDIA driver:

If you can’t wait, go to NVIDIA website and download the .run installer package (not recommended for beginners):

NVIDIA 460.56

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Firefox 86 Released with Multiple Video Playback in Picture-in-Picture Mode

Last updated: February 24, 2021

Mozilla Firefox web browser 86.0 was released with improved pop out video support and latest privacy protection.

In Firefox 86, you can now play multiple videos at the same time in the Picture-in-Picture mode.

The new release also features new privacy protection: Total Cookie Protection. It stops cookies from tracking you around the web by creating a separate cookie jar for every website.

To enable this feature, go to about:preferences#privacy page and set Enhanced Tracking Protection to Strict mode.

Other changes in Firefox 86 include:

  • Improved Print functionality with a cleaner design and better integration
  • Enable credit card management and auto-fill feature for users in Canada.
  • Reader mode now works with local HTML pages.
  • Mitigate the stack clash attack in Linux and Android.
  • Remove DTLS 1.0 support.
  • Various security fixes.

How to get Firefox 86 in Ubuntu:

For all current Ubuntu releases, the new Firefox package will be published in Ubuntu security & updates repositories in next a few days.

At that time, you can easily update the web browser through Software Updater (Update Manager)

For those who can’t wait, go to the release page which also includes a download button:

Firefox 86 Release Note

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HPLIP 3.21.2 Released with Fedora 33 and Lots of New Printers Support

Last updated: February 20, 2021

HP Linux Imaging and Printing

HPLIP, HP developed printer and scanner drivers for Linux, released version 3.21.2 with new Linux distributions and devices support.

According to the release note, HPLIP 3.21.2 add following new Distro’s support:

  • Fedora 33
  • Manjaro 20.2
  • Debian 10.7
  • RHEL 8.3
  • RHEL 7.7
  • RHEL 7.8
  • RHEL 7.9

The new release also added a lot of new printers support:

  • HP LaserJet Enterprise M406dn, M407dn
  • HP LaserJet Enterprise MFP M430f, MFP M431f
  • HP LaserJet Managed E40040dn
  • HP LaserJet Managed MFP E42540f
  • HP Color LaserJet Enterprise M455dn
  • HP Color LaserJet Managed E45028dn
  • HP Color LaserJet Enterprise MFP M480f
  • HP Color LaserJet Managed MFP E47528f
  • HP PageWide XL 3920 MFP
  • HP PageWide XL 4200 Printer
  • HP PageWide XL 4200 Multifunction Printer
  • HP PageWide XL 4700 Printer
  • HP PageWide XL 4700 Multifunction Printer
  • HP PageWide XL 5200 Printer
  • HP PageWide XL 5200 Multifunction Printer
  • HP PageWide XL 8200 Printer
  • HP Laserjet M207d, M208d, M209d, M210d, M212d, M211d, M209dw, M209dwe, M210dw, M210dwe, M212dw, M212dwe, M208dw, M207dw, M211dw
  • HP LaserJet MFP M234dw, MFP M234dwe, MFP M233d, MFP M232d, MFP M235d
  • HP LaserJet MFP M237d, MFP M236d, MFP M232dw, MFP M232dwc, MFP M233dw
  • HP LaserJet MFP M236dw, MFP M235dw, MFP M235dwe, MFP M237dwe, MFP M237dw
  • HP LaserJet MFP M232sdn, MFP M233sdn, MFP M236sdn, MFP M234sdn
  • HP LaserJet MFP M234sdne, MFP M235sdn, MFP M235sdne, MFP M237sdne, MFP M237sdn
  • HP LaserJet MFP M232sdw, MFP M233sdw, MFP M236sdw, MFP M234sdw
  • HP LaserJet MFP M234sdwe, MFP M235sdw, MFP M235sdwe, MFP M237sdwe, MFP M237sdw

How to Install HPLIP 3.21.2 in Ubuntu:

1. To install the software, download the package “hplip-3.21.2.run” from the link below:

HPLIP Download Page

2. Then open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T or by searching for “terminal” from app launcher. When it opens, run command to give executable permission:

chmod +x ~/Downloads/hplip-3.21.2.run

3. Finally run command to start installing the driver:

./Downloads/hplip-3.21.2.run

Follow the terminal output and answer the questions. If everything goes OK, plug or re-plug your HP devices and enjoy!

Due to Pyqt5 dependency issue, the package does not install in Ubuntu 20.04.
As a workaround, choose “custom” as the installation mode, answer “no” to disable ‘Graphical User Interfaces (Qt5)’, and say “no” when installing the python-reportlab package.

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2D Animation App Pencil2D 0.6.6 Released with Crash Recovery Support

Last updated: February 17, 2021

The Pencil2D team announced a new release of its 2D animation software with new feature and various bug-fixes.

Pencil2D is a free and open-source software to make 2D hand-drawn animations. It’s lightweight, easy to use, and works on Linux, Windows, Mac OS, and FreeBSD. It supports both bitmap and vector graphics, and allows to seamlessly switch between the two workflows.

By releasing version 0.6.6, Pencil2D gets crash recovery support. On app startup, it now opens the last edited project automatically. And the timeline now using the system palette colors.

Other changes in the release include:

  • Improved user interface overlapping issue at low screen resolutions by adding scrollbars
  • “Reset Windows” now resets all sub panels to their initial positions
  • Fixed that Check for updates not working on Windows.
  • Fixed a couple of issues regarding frame cache invalidation
  • Fixed misc tablet/mouse stroke issues
  • Fixed memory leaks
  • Fixed new layer naming
  • Fixed broken polyline tool

Download / Install Pencil2D:

The project offers official Linux binary through Appimage packge, which is available to download at the link below:

Download Pencil2D (.appimage)

Grab the package, and give executable permission in file Properties -> Permissions tab. Finally double click to run it to launch the software.

For choice, you can install Pencil2D via universal Flatpak package. See this tutorial for details.

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TeXstudio 3.0.5 Released, Install it via Official Ubuntu PPA

Last updated: February 16, 2021

TeXstudio released new 3.0.5 version a few days ago with important bug-fixes. Here’s how to install or update it in Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10 via PPA.

Changes in TeXstudio 3.0.5 include:

  • Fix crash when deleting all elements of a meta command in the ‘Configure’ dialog under ‘Build’ tab.
  • Fix large tooltips on Windows with ADWAITA style
  • Limit PDF render threads to 8 or to set value.
  • Add command line option --texpath to force a tex path
  • Fix touchpad scroll in x direction
  • Fix a seldom crash
  • Adapt speller dialog to find the same errors as the online checker
  • Fix replace in global search

How to Install TeXstudio 3.0.5 via PPA:

Besides using the non-install Appimage package, you can install the LaTeX editor from the official TeXstudio PPA in all current Ubuntu releases.

1. Open terminal either by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard or by searching for ‘terminal’ from software launcher. When it opens, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sunderme/texstudio

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to add the PPA.

2. If you installed the editor from Ubuntu Software, remove the old packages before getting the new release from Ubuntu PPA:

sudo apt-get remove texstudio-doc texstudio-l10n

3. After adding the PPA, you can either upgrade it via Software Updater:

or run commands in terminal to install or upgrade the software:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install texstudio

Uninstall:

To remove the LaTeX editor, run command in terminal:

sudo apt-get remove --autoremove texstudio

And go to Software & Updates -> Other Software to remove PPA repositories.

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Linux Kernel 5.11 Released! How to Install it in Ubuntu / Linux Mint

Last updated: February 15, 2021

Linux Kernel

Linux Kernel 5.11 was released a day ago on Valentine’s Day. Here’ how you can install it in Ubuntu and Linux Mint based systems.

Linus Torvalds announced the Kernel 5.11: “Nothing unexpected or particularly scary happened this week, so here we are – with 5.11 tagged and pushed out.
In fact, it’s a smaller-than-average set of commits from rc7 to final, which makes me happy. And I already have several pull requests lined up for tomorrow, so we’re all set for the merge window to start..”

New features in Linux Kernel 5.11 include:

  • Intel Integer Scaling support
  • Intel async page flipping support
  • Initial support for AMD Green Sardine and Van Gogh APUs
  • Intel WiFi 6GHz band support
  • NVIDIA RTX 30 “Ampere” Support
  • The OUYA game console and other new ARM hardware support
  • Improved USB4 and Thunderbolt support
  • Sound support for Intel Alder Lake
  • Fixed the frequency invariance performance regression for AMD.

How to Install Linux Kernel 5.11:

The Ubuntu Mainline Kernel Archive provides the new kernel packages via DEB files.

The mainline build kernels do not include any Ubuntu-provided drivers or patches. They are not supported and are not appropriate for production use.

For those prefer using a graphical tool, see this tool to install the latest Kernel.

To manually download the mainline kernel packages for Linux 5.11, go to the link button:

Download Kernel 5.11

Select generic for common system, and lowlatency for a low latency system (e.g. for recording audio):

  1. linux-headers-5.11.0-xxxxxx_all.deb
  2. linux-headers-5.11.0-xxx-generic(/lowlatency)_xxx_amd64.deb
  3. linux-modules-5.11.0-xxx-generic(/lowlatency)_xxx_amd64.deb
  4. linux-image-xxx-5.11.0-xxx-generic(/lowlatency)_xxx_amd64.deb

Alternatively you can download and install the kernel binaries via terminal commands ( open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T):

cd /tmp/

wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.11/amd64/linux-headers-5.11.0-051100_5.11.0-051100.202102142330_all.deb

wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.11/amd64/linux-headers-5.11.0-051100-generic_5.11.0-051100.202102142330_amd64.deb

wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.11/amd64/linux-image-unsigned-5.11.0-051100-generic_5.11.0-051100.202102142330_amd64.deb

wget -c https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.11/amd64/linux-modules-5.11.0-051100-generic_5.11.0-051100.202102142330_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Once installed, restart your computer and enjoy!

Uninstall Linux Kernel 5.11:

Restart your machine and select boot with the previous kernel in boot menu ‘Grub2 -> Advanced Option for Ubuntu’. Then run command to remove Linux Kernel 5.11:

sudo dpkg --purge linux-image-unsigned-5.11.0-051100-generic
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